


make way for my amends

by Thealmostrhetoricalquestion



Series: Death and Dreams [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alive Gansey, Attempt at Humor, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Post-Gansey's Death, ronan and adam are in love and it's gross
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 18:50:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8634028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion/pseuds/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion
Summary: There’s old, soft music pouring from a record player in the corner, a yellow one that’s balanced atop a stack of comics and car magazines. Ronan doesn’t remember what the song’s called, but he recognises it, and a wave of grief washes over him, catching him off guard. It’s a classical song that Gansey used to play, sometimes in the early hours of the morning, sometimes in the afternoon when he was scribbling away in his journal. Ronan is pretty sure that something similar was played at Gansey’s funeral. 
“Ronan?” 
Gansey is there, shifting from his position on the floor to gaze at Ronan over the tops of his wiry glasses, concern written all over his face. It’s not the first time that Ronan’s seen him since they brought Gansey back, obviously, but it doesn’t matter. It hits Ronan like a physical punch to the stomach, and he exhales sharply – Gansey is real, and alive, and there in front of him, right there.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The second part to Death and Dreams! The last part! I told myself ages ago that I'd finish this off, because I wrote it before TRK came out and I just found this, so I'm posting it to get it out of the way. You do kinda need to read the first one to understand this, but the gist is that Adam and Ronan brought Gansey back to life after a year of him being dead, and this is the aftermath, if you will. I hope you like it :) 
> 
> Warning: When it gets to the sentence "Ronan is drowning" You may want to skip ahead if you don't like descriptions of claustrophobia(?) or panic attacks, I think. I don't know how to describe it, but there's the drowning thing and a brief bit about Adam not being able to breathe. I didn't want to tag it as violence because it's not, but it's on par with the book canon horror.

Dreams are a hazy kind of magic, but once he’s inside them, part of them, things have never felt more clear. Ronan dusts his hands over the sharp lines of a fallen tree, kicks at puddles of murky water and breathes in the scent of wood and earth. Pine needles scatter the ground, a sharp carpet. Magic is here, the same magic that put Gansey in the ground and dragged him back out again, the same magic that tangles Adam’s arms in thorns and nettles when he sleeps too deeply, the same magic that douses Blue in petals when Ronan closes his eyes.

He looks for Blue, here, in the bright forest. There are no shadows, no darkness; the sky is a mottled blue and white, and his shoulder is lighter than usual, the usual weight gone. Chainsaw would like it here, he thinks. She’d like to fly here, return to his shoulder to caw in his ear and then take off again, over and over.

He finds Blue beside a pale pond, and that’s when he knows. She already knows.

Blue stands up abruptly, as soon as her eyes catch Ronan’s. He lifts a hand to wave, a sardonic smile on his face as he toes his way through the twigs and leaves; some are red, some are green, and some are purple.

“Something happened,” Blue says urgently. “I felt it. It was like the Earth tilted. I nearly fell down, but nobody else was affected. Something happened.”

Ronan nods. Miracles aren’t quiet. “Gansey.”

Blue inhales sharply. “Gansey.”

“Isn’t it always Gansey?” Ronan asks, and Blue laughs, a little hysterical.

“He’s all there is, sometimes,” Blue admits, like it costs her something to say the words. She tips her chin up, eyes narrowed, and waits for Ronan to talk. Ronan would wait, too, wait for her to break, but that wouldn’t be fair. Gansey would be appalled, Adam would frown, and Ronan doesn’t have it in him to be an ass, anyway. Not now. Not when it’s about something so important.

“We brought him back,” Ronan says, and moves quickly when Blue looks like she’s about to fall down. She carefully lowers herself back down beside the pond, her face pale. Ronan hovers a little awkwardly, shoves his hands into his pockets and eventually gives up, following her down to the ground. Her hands are shaking and so are her shoulders, but her eyes are dry, if a little wide.

Their knees almost touch as they sit, cross-legged and contemplative under a burning sun. This part of the forest is quiet, and Ronan is grateful for it. He’s good at silence, loves it more than trying to force his words into some semblance of something comforting. Blue looks like she’d reject comfort anyway.

She looks different. Her hair is longer now, still choppy but definitely longer, hovering over her shoulders. Her skin is darker than before and there’s a strip over her nose that looks a little burnt. Her arms have acquired a little muscle and her legs look strong. She’s wearing a generic white t-shirt but her tights are ripped and the skirt looks homemade. She looks the same, but so different. There’s a weight on her shoulders that Ronan recognises; he carries it too, and so does Adam.

“You really did it?” Blue asks wonderingly. “You really brought him back. He’s alive?”

Ronan nods sharply, snorts. “Why would I tell you that if it weren’t true?”

“No, I know,” Blue says distractedly. “You don’t lie.”

And I’m not _that_ cruel, Ronan doesn’t say. Sometimes he is, but not now, not to Blue, not about this.

“He’s back,” Ronan says simply. “He’s alive.”

“How is he?” Blue asks, biting her lips. “Wait, no. Don’t answer that. Just … what did you do? How did it work?”

“If you want to know how he is,” Ronan says, ignoring the other stuff. “You’ll have to come back and find out for yourself. He wants to see you, anyway.”

“He does?”

Ronan snorts. “Don’t be stupid, Maggot, it doesn’t suit you. Come back and hug him or something, God, I don’t fucking know.”

Blue stands up again, so abruptly that Ronan almost jumps.

“Wake up,” she demands. “Wake up so that I can go back. I need to get a plane, and call Mom, and maybe Calla, she might –”

Ronan rolls his eyes and wakes up.

*

Adam is putting up curtains. Ronan stands behind the front desk, book hanging from his hands, forgotten, mouth wide open in a mix of confusion and vague horror. He must make a noise because Adam jerks his head around, the fabric bunching in his careful hands, and when he sees Ronan all of the tension floods from his body. He smiles slightly, easy. Ronan wants to vomit.

“ _What_ are _those_?” Ronan demands. He throws the book carelessly onto the desk; it lands with a thud beside the silver and lilac monster masquerading as a cat that likes to sit in front of Ronan’s chair and stare at him with wide, amber eyes. Jane, Adam had called her. Ronan just refers to her as _Beast_ , or _Fuck off_.

“Curtains, Lynch,” Adam says, rolling his eyes. “I need somewhere dark for the moonwort to sit and grow, and this is the easiest place to set the table up in.”

He says it all casually, like he isn’t a second away from defacing the shop with the ugliest curtains that Ronan’s ever seen.

“Those are the ugliest curtains that I’ve ever seen,” Ronan tells him, just in case his expression isn’t plain enough.

Adam frowns at him. “What’s wrong with them?”

“They look like you pulled them out of the garbage.”

Adam taps his finger against his chin, mock-thoughtful. “Now that you mention it, I _did_ go dumpster diving the other day. I must have mixed these up with the _other_ curtains I bought.”

Ronan rolls his eyes. “They have fucking _flowers_ on them.”

Adam crosses both arms over his chest, and the curtains hang there uncertainly, like they’re not sure whether their stay will be short-lived or not.

“What’s wrong with flowers?” Adam asks, eyebrow raised. “You live in front of an orchard. The shop is full of flowers! I’ve seen you dream up all sorts of plants. You made it rain petals the other night!”

Ronan scowls. “That was Maggot’s fault. She was crying too hard, I accidentally brought it all back with me.”

Adam bites his lip for a moment and glances at the hallway, where the staircase is just barely visible. Ronan follows his gaze and sighs. The quiet seems to fall over them, heavy like a thick cloak.

“She should be on her way home soon,” Adam says. “Do you think he’ll come downstairs before or after she goes to drag him out of there?”

Ronan sighs again, shoulders drooping. “Fuck if I know. Reckon he’ll probably stay up there as long as he can get away with. I know I would.”

“Why?” The word bursts out of Adam like a bullet from a gun, explosive and unstoppable, a demand and a plea and a soft, broken sound. He looks _devastated_ , for a moment, and Ronan feels all the breath catch in his lungs even as Adam hastily composes himself, expression smoothing out into something calmer. Adam is a master at hiding himself, and his feelings.

Ronan crosses the room in three long strides and gets his arms around Adam, tugging the other boy in. It’s awkward at first, because Ronan is still unused to being allowed to do this with Adam, and Adam is still unused to being held at all.  He stands there, stiff and reluctant, and then he gives in and just collapses against Ronan with a crumpled sigh.

“It’s not like I thought it would happen instantly,” Adam murmurs, ducking his head under Ronan’s chin. Ronan splays his hands across Adam’s back cautiously, fingers playing over the little knobs in his spine. “I know it’s going to take time. Just, do you think we did the spell wrong?”

“It’s a lot to take in,” Ronan reminds him, and God, when did he get to be the responsible one. “It’s been a whole year since he died. His family is gone, his home has been sold, and half of his friends are living in a magical shop that they dreamt up in order to bring him back from the dead.”

There’s a pause, and then Adam says, “You dreamt it up. I had nothing to do with it.”

Ronan snorts, ducks his head to nose at Adam’s temple. “Yours’ was the first damn room I created. You had everything to do with it.”

_You always do_.

Another pause, and then Adam sighs, “The curtains really are ugly, aren’t they?”

“The fuckin’ _ugliest_ , man.”

*

Ronan climbs the stairs, the wood creaking beneath his thick socks. He doesn’t wear boots in the house anymore, not since he tracked a fuck-load of dirt in through the house and had to clean it up while Adam sat on the desk and laughed at him, eating dream popcorn with buttery fingers. Plus, he’s comfortable enough here that he could walk around in his underwear if it weren’t for the possibility of customers striding in like they own the place and almost walking into his bare chest (It’s only happened the once, but sometimes Adam likes to leave a post-it note lying around to remind Ronan of the incident, because Adam is a bit of a dick).

He never used to be this comfortable here; new places are hard for him to get used to, and Ronan had walked around Monmouth with a scowl pasted on his face for the first week after he moved in. The shop has grown on him, though. It’s never going to be Monmouth and it’s never going to be the Barns, and Ronan’s still going to move out and go home, to the Barns, but just not yet. The Shop will do for now.

“Gansey?” The second floor is a mix of bedrooms and bathrooms, but Ronan bypasses those; Gansey’s bedroom has been empty since they brought him back from the dead, and today will be no exception. Instead, he heads past a spare bedroom and makes his way up to the attic, careful not to make too much noise.

“Gansey?” he calls again, clambering through the hatch.

There’s old, soft music pouring from a record player in the corner, a yellow one that’s balanced atop a stack of comics and car magazines. Ronan doesn’t remember what the song’s called, but he _recognises_ it, and a wave of grief washes over him, catching him off guard. It’s a classical song that Gansey used to play, sometimes in the early hours of the morning, sometimes in the afternoon when he was scribbling away in his journal. Ronan is pretty sure that something similar was played at Gansey’s funeral.

“Ronan?”

Gansey is there, shifting from his position on the floor to gaze at Ronan over the tops of his wiry glasses, concern written all over his face. It’s not the first time that Ronan’s seen him since they brought Gansey back, obviously, but it doesn’t matter. It hits Ronan like a physical punch to the stomach, and he exhales sharply – Gansey is real, and alive, and there in front of him, right there, where Ronan can see him and touch him, if he wants.

“Are you alright?”

Ronan clears his throat and nods sharply, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans and kicking the hatch shut behind him. He stands there for a minute, lost, and then glances around him as he searches for something to say. The attic isn’t nearly as dusty or cluttered as most attics are, but there are still knick-knacks lingering here and there – a box of photographs, a broken scrabble board, a few dream-things that Ronan dreamt up that he didn’t want Adam to see yet.

Most of the attic is taken up by Gansey’s model of Henrietta.

Gansey tips his head to the side. “Sit down, you’re making me nervous just standing there. You can hold this piece together whilst the glue dries.”

He hands Ronan two corners of cardboard, and Ronan takes them with a disgusted look and tucks himself into the space beside Gansey, careful not to kick any of the little houses as he sprawls his legs out. Gansey busies himself with glue and a set of small cardboard steps, face creased up in concentration.

“Can’t sleep?” Ronan asks. It’s pretty late, late enough to be early. “Is it the room?”

Gansey shakes his head. “The room is quite fine.”

Ronan narrows his eyes. “Well fuck, I’m convinced. Let’s go and throw a party in it right now, since you’re in love with it so much.”

Gansey sighs and rolls his eyes, carefully placing the steps down in front of him. He plays with a bit of loose thread from his sleeve and then sighs again.

Ronan lets the bit of cardboard go and leans forward, pokes Gansey in the chest, intent on getting answers out of this boy even if it kills him. “Right, quit fucking sighing and just talk, Dick.”

Gansey glares at him, and says, “There’s no need for that.”

Ronan arches an eyebrow. “There is if it finally gets you to look at me, _Jesus_.”

The song starts to taper off, and Gansey shoots the record player such a desperate look that it throws Ronan off balance for a moment. Seconds later, Gansey’s expression is bland and uninterested, but Ronan doesn’t buy it for a second. Never has, never will. He stands, almost crushes the bit of cardboard beneath his feet, and makes his way to the record player.

“What are you doing?”

“Swimming, obviously, can’t you fucking tell?” Ronan fiddles about with the record player until the song starts up again, slow to build but beautiful when it does. There are records tossed on the floor like someone was in a mad scramble to find the right one, and Ronan frowns; he _thinks_ he knows what’s going on, but damn it if Adam isn’t better than him with this stuff. They’re both experts on Richard Gansey, and Ronan knows that this _is_ Richard Gansey, the same person that went into the ground a year ago, but he’s still doubtful.

Not of Gansey, obviously. He doubts _himself_.

What if he’s forgotten? What if he doesn’t know how to handle Gansey anymore, doesn’t know what he expects from Ronan, doesn’t know his favourite food or the way he smiles or what his sleep pattern’s like (Ronan does know that one, actually, the answer is ‘fucked’) or how he talks and laughs and smiles? What if he can’t tell when Gansey needs help, can’t tell when he’s upset and needs to talk or when he just wants peace and quiet, maybe a quick spin around the block, maybe a long, quiet drive? What if he’s forgotten it all, forgotten his best friend?

_It’s not about you_ , Ronan reminds himself sternly. _It’s about him_.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Gansey says, and there’s something uncertain in his tone that makes Ronan wince – Gansey isn’t uncertain, not on the outside. On the inside he’s a ball of anxiety, a bundle of nerves and fear and little quirks that make him question everything, including himself, especially himself. But on the outside, he’s a Gansey.

Ronan shrugs. “It’s not that bad. Reckon I can stand to listen to it a few more times.” He turns, then, intending to sit back down, but he freezes, because Gansey is _looking_ at him. Intently, like Ronan is a piece of art that Gansey’s only ever seen in darkness before, in shadow, and now he gets to view it in bright, full colour.

“Since when do you accommodate me?” Gansey asks, and Ronan scoffs.

“Since the dawn of fucking time, that’s when, and you know it. You do the same back.”

“Not recently,” Gansey murmurs, and his eyes narrow as something vulnerable passes over Ronan’s face.

“Not exactly your fault, though, is it?” Ronan asks, rolling his eyes and shifting a little uncomfortably. Then a thought hits him, and he swears loudly. Gansey doesn’t even blink, just watches him calmly.

“That better not be what this is,” Ronan warns him, staring at him sharply. “Guilt is the last fucking thing you should be feeling, man, and if it’s on that list of yours then you’re going to need to strike it off right fucking now.”

Gansey gestures with the cardboard stairs. “Try doing everything I did, and then not feel guilty at the end of it all.”

“Christ, Gansey,” Ronan says, storming over to the other boy. “You didn’t hop on a plane and fuck off to the beach for a year, did you? You died, man, and that’s not something you get to blame yourself for. You didn’t abandon us, you _died_.”

“It doesn’t feel like it,” Gansey says insistently, and there’s the passion that Ronan’s been waiting for, the rough, excited note to his tone; even when he’s not actually excited, even when he’s miserable, Gansey’s voice comes alive. “I remember that night, and I remember what happened. But there’s no space between closing my eyes and waking up in an orchard, there’s nothing there. There isn’t even a gap. It’s like I blinked and missed everything. But I didn’t blink. I died.”

Ronan is still standing there, a monster in the middle of a miniscule Henrietta, and Gansey is at his feet, jaw tight and eyes wide like he’s trying to hold all of his words in but can’t help but let Ronan see them. Hesitantly, Ronan shifts to the side and sits, close enough that he can hear every murmur Gansey makes.

“Nothing is the same,” Gansey says, and miraculously he sounds quite calm, as if he’s said all this before, and maybe he has, Ronan doesn’t know; maybe he whispered it to the shadows in the attic whilst he and Adam waited, impatient and worried, downstairs, for Gansey to find his words.

“We’re the same,” Ronan says lamely, reaching out to nudge Gansey’s thigh.

Gansey snorts. “You said Noah only came back when I did, and I haven’t seen him. Blue isn’t even in Henrietta, and you’re here, instead of at The Barns. Adam’s supposed to be in college, not stuck here because of me. Adam’s always wanted to go to college. He never wanted to stay in Henrietta. I don’t even know what this place is. You’ve all changed, Ronan.”

Ronan makes an impatient noise. “Yeah, man, of course we fucking have. We watched you _die_. What, are you saying we should have just stayed the same, not cared about the fact that you were gone? You telling me that you would have stayed exactly the same if Blue had died? What about Adam, huh? If he’d died instead of you, would you have been the same old you? Just carried on like nothing happened?”

Even saying the words hurts, and thinking about it is agony – he pictures Adam, pictures Blue, sprawled out the way Gansey had been, splattered with mud and blood and pale as bone. It sets his stomach churning, as much as it had when he’d looked down and seen Gansey’s still, dead face.

“Of course not,” Gansey says, the words ripped out of him – he looks appalled and Ronan is viciously pleased. He can’t have things the way they were back before, he’s learned that now, but he can have some semblance of normal, he can enjoy Gansey’s life.

“We had to learn to live without you,” comes a soft voice from behind them, and they both turn to see Adam there, still on the first step, halfway through the hatch of the attic, his arms crossed self-consciously over a ratty sweater. Ronan doesn’t know how long he’s been there, but he doesn’t mind. They haven’t said anything that Adam can’t know.

Gansey’s face is painful to look at, much too raw, but Ronan looks anyway.

“Temporarily,” Adam continues. “But we still had to learn, nonetheless. And I don’t think any of us did it healthily, but that’s not the point. We had to try and cope, Gansey. Things that mattered before mattered a bit less when you were gone. And I’m not going to tell you that we’re the same as we were before, but neither are you, Gansey.” 

“Think you can deal with that?” Ronan asks, grinning a little, and Gansey rolls his eyes.

He’s quiet for a moment, and Ronan shares a quick look with Adam, who takes another step into the attic, his mouth a half-moon. The music echoes sweetly around them, and Ronan supposes he could get used to it again. It’s been nothing but his own harsh songs beating against his eardrums, and maybe something softer is necessary, healthy even.

“I just wanted something familiar,” Gansey says eventually, gesturing around him at the model, the song seeping out of the record player, even a few photographs that Gansey’s propped up against cardboard boxes.

“We figured,” Adam says quietly. “But just because we’re different, doesn’t make us strangers.”

“We’re familiar too,” Ronan says. 

*

Things get a little easier, after that. Ronan drives to the nearest shop with Gansey, grabs a cart and glides gleefully along the aisles, stocking up on everything that Gansey likes. Gansey follows him, a little hesitant at first, glancing at people like they’re about to jump out and bite him, but he relaxes after ten minutes of Ronan prattling on about the shop and regaling him with the story of their first customer, about eleven months ago.

“Bit of a dickhead, man, believe me, right,” Ronan says, shoving a pile of pop-tarts into the cart. Gansey removes a few and places them back on the shelf, ignores Ronan’s disgruntled expression. “He shows up and sneers around the place like I advertised it to be five stars and it turned out to be a pigsty, right, then he smashes one of Adam’s vials “ _accidentally_ ”, and you know how Adam does this thing with his face where he fucking terrifies people even when he’s got his mouth shut, yeah? Well, he did that, for about an hour, because the guy wouldn’t fucking _leave_. And this guy had his nose in the air like he had all the fucking secrets of the universe shoved into that tiny brain of his, but when Adam actually demanded to know what the fuck he had to offer, he was full of shit, man, talking about ghosts and spirits and how ‘the ones who love us never truly leave us’ and all that bullshit, and Adam –”

“You keep saying that,” Gansey says, interrupting him with an amused smile. “Adam. You’ve stopped calling him Parrish.”

Ronan pauses, almost runs into a pyramid of beans. Gansey doesn’t look suspicious, just a little wistful, like it’s something he’s been waiting for and now he’s missed it, and Ronan gets this feeling low in his stomach, something that feels like guilt and grief and shame all at once.

They haven’t talked about what they are, he and Adam. There’s been time, plenty of it, but they’ve been occupied with Gansey, worried about Gansey, talking to Gansey and waiting for Blue, really, and there’s been the odd customer, too. There have been kisses, small ones, and one long, slick make-out session that still curls Ronan’s toes when he thinks about it for too long, so Ronan knows they’re on the same page, he’s just not sure which chapter they’re on.

Plus, he doesn’t really want to tell Gansey yet. Not until the other boy’s back on his feet, properly. He’s not ashamed anymore; he knows Gansey would never judge him for this, and that’s never really been the problem. Ronan has never hated himself, but this part of him, the part that likes … _Adam_ , has always been a bit smothered, by his own choice. It was all a secret; one he wasn’t comfortable sharing. It’s not _shame_ so much as it is uncertainty.

With Kavinsky, that had been shame.

But Kavinsky’s gone now, and the shame is mostly gone too.

He doesn’t want to make Gansey feel like he’s missed more than he absolutely has to know about, and Adam agrees, for the most part. So it’s a secret, all of it. For now.

“I live with the loser,” he says eventually. “Kinda got used to calling him by his name.”

“I lived with you,” Gansey points out. “I still called you Lynch.”

Ronan smirks, arches an eyebrow. “Jealous?” he asks innocently. “Want me to start calling you Dick, instead of Gansey? Dear little dicky –”

He breaks off with a cackle as Gansey shoves a hand in his face, pushes him away and snatches the cart away from him.

“I was trying to say something nice,” Gansey says exasperatedly, rolling his eyes, and God, Ronan’s missed that. “It’s good that the two of you are closer, now. Do you still fight?”

It’s a stupid question, and Ronan rolls his eyes right back. “Of course we do, Gansey. We live together, we don’t go to Church and hold hands and pray together. Last night he used my headphones to clamp some of his magical shit together, apparently the glue was drying, or something, like that’s an excuse, and then my fucking headphones got covered in goop.”

Gansey picks up a bottle of vegetable oil and adds it to the cart, and Ronan doesn’t know why the fuck he does it because none of them are particular good at cooking – Adam can make pie but that’s the extent of his abilities, and Ronan’s an expert in ordering takeout (it’s the only time that he willingly uses a phone).

“If broken headphones are the worst thing you have to worry about,” Gansey says, picking up a lemon-shaped container of lemon juice and staring at it like it’s the second coming of Christ, “then I think it’s safe to say that our lives are looking pretty good.”

Noah appears behind him, silently. He’s faded, but there, and that’s when Ronan knows that Blue’s back again. Her plane must have landed.

Noah deftly steals the lemon juice from Gansey and stares at it in awe. “It’s shaped like a lemon,” he says monotonously, but Ronan can hear the glee in his voice, recognises it from endless evenings spent listening to Noah talk in his old room.

Gansey wheels around and stares at Noah in delight, a beam on his face, and Noah returns the gaze somewhat wryly.

“Anyone would think you’d just seen Santa, Gansey,” Noah says, and he carefully puts the lemon juice back in Gansey’s hand.

“Is that where you’ve been?” Ronan asks, tugging at the leather bands around his wrist. The turquoise bead bumps against his lip. “Wrapping presents for all the little boys and girls?”

“I have elves to do that for me,” Noah says blithely, peering over Ronan’s shoulder to look inside the trolley. Then he snaps his eyes up and says, a little shyly, “Good to have you back, Gansey. We missed you.”

Ronan rolls his eyes at Gansey’s answering laugh, but something warms inside him. That’s what Noah is, minimalism and surprising honesty, faded glitter and a smudge against one cheek. Ronan would never say that he’s missed it, not out loud, but he also wouldn’t deny it, either. He doesn’t lie.

“You can join my club now,” Noah says. “The Dead Boys Club. It’s pretty exclusive.”

Ronan snorts, reclaims his hold over the cart and pushes it towards the drinks aisle, one headphone dangling over his shoulder, the other shoved in his ear. Nothing’s playing, but it’s just a habit at this point, to wear them.

“Thanks Noah,” Gansey says. “As long as I get to be treasurer.”

“Of course,” Noah says cheerily, and then he frowns and lean closer to Gansey. “You don’t smell like you.”

Gansey looks self-conscious for a moment, startled, and Ronan chimes in, “It’s the mint. We’ll have to get some.”

Gansey looks genuinely surprised. His gaze turns pensive as he contemplates it, and he says quietly, “I’d forgotten. I hadn’t even noticed. Is that normal? Well, of course it’s not normal, nothing’s normal about coming back to life.”

Ronan catches Noah’s eye, who looks blankly back. “I’m not really an expert in this,” Ronan says haltingly. “Ask the ghost.”

Noah tilts his head to the side, gets distracted by shiny packaging on the nearest shelf. “I miss things,” he says, eventually, and Gansey turns to listen intently whilst Ronan fills up the cart with orange juice and beer and something fizzy. “I forget about things. I forget what my sister looks like, sometimes, and then I spend a whole day with my family, trying to remember them.”

“Family.” Gansey looks stricken. Ronan freezes, his hand inches away from another carton of orange juice; he lets it fall, turns to watch grief and fear slide onto Gansey’s face. He looks like he’s about to be sick, and Ronan glances helplessly at Noah, who’s more transparent than usual.

“Don’t you dare disappear,” Ronan hisses, and Noah hesitates.

“Helen,” Gansey says quietly, in such an awfully pained voice that Ronan wants to shove his earphones in to block the sound out. “And my parents, _God_. I didn’t even think – I, I didn’t _think_.”

“It’s alright,” Ronan says awkwardly, moves forward to clap a hand bracingly on Gansey’s shoulder, like that will keep him from falling apart in the middle of a supermarket. A guy looks at them suspiciously from where he’s stacking the shelf; Ronan shoots a heavy glare at the guy and Noah turns to stare at him creepily, and the guy immediately whips his head around, the back of his neck burning.

“What do I do?” Gansey asks. “Where are they? Are they still here?”

Ronan hesitates. Truthfully, they’ve already had this conversation, when Gansey first exploded out of the fire in the middle of the Orchard, landing on the ground, dazed and confused. Ronan stupidly believed that Gansey had retained all the information that they had piled on him that night, but now he can see that this Gansey is still just as dazed as the other one, just as lost.

“They moved away,” Ronan says quietly. “A few days after your funeral, they sold Monmouth and moved out of Henrietta. Helen left a forwarding address, but Adam and I didn’t think she wanted us to use it, not really. She left your urn with us too, said that it was too painful for your parents to keep in the house, even though they wouldn’t admit it.”

Gansey nods slowly, like he’s caught up in the grip of time, moving slower than the rest of them. “That’s how you brought me back, I remember you saying. My ashes.”

He reaches for something to grab onto, and Ronan moves closer, winces at the hold around his wrist. He’s sure he’s going to have bruises, but he doesn’t care.

“Come on,” he says firmly, wheeling Gansey around. “We can shop later. Noah, you coming or what?”

Gansey makes a noise of protest, but Ronan ignores him. “The supermarket isn’t going anywhere, Gansey. We can go home and you can decide what you want to do, if you want to find your family and let them know what’s going on. We can think of a story. If that’s what you want.”

“Wouldn’t that just hurt them more?” Gansey asks. His face is pale but his strength is returning, Ronan can feel it in the way he doesn’t lean as much into Ronan. And then he _does_ lean, heavily, and Ronan knows that’s for more than support. He doesn’t move away.

“It’s your choice,” Noah says softly. “I think they’d want to know that you’re alive, though. Wouldn’t you?”

Ronan shoots him a glare, but Noah isn’t paying attention.

“I can’t tell my family that I’m alive, because I’m not,” Noah says mournfully, his eyes on Gansey and Gansey only. “I won’t grow older and they’ll be able to tell, anyway. Even if they could see me, I don’t really look alive. But you’re alive, Gansey. And you could tell them anything, and they’ll believe it, they won’t care because they’ll have you back. That’s all they want.”

Gansey stares at him, and so does Ronan, the pit of angry sadness in his stomach deepening. Why are they all so fucked up? Why can’t the world be kind to them?

“It’s your choice,” Noah adds, so quietly that it’s almost a whisper.

“But you don’t have to make it yet,” Ronan says, catching Noah’s eye; this time, he holds the gaze until Noah nods. They both turn to Gansey, and Ronan pats him on the shoulder, the gesture too small to mean much.

“You don’t have to make it yet.”

*

There’s a screech of wheels, and Calla’s car pulls into the driveway. Ronan peers out of the window from where he’s perusing the shelves – the ugly curtains are still up, unfortunately, because Ronan’s too lazy to go shopping even when the curtains are a genuine assault on his senses – searching for whatever kind of plant Adam was talking about earlier as he furiously mixed things together in the kitchen, and immediately yells for Gansey.

He can see the outline of Calla through the windscreen, sees the _tap tap tap_ of her long, purple fingernails against the steering wheel, and then the passenger door opens and a small figure clad in a thin pea-green coat clambers out.

“Gansey,” he yells again. “For fucks sake, get out here before I have to deal with tears.”

He hears Adam yell something back, and for a minute he thinks Gansey’s gone out, possibly, or is asleep for once, but then he hears the patter of footsteps down the hall.

Outside, Blue pauses to lean in through the passenger window, mouthing something at Calla, who flicks her hand impatiently and then peels away from the house, leaving behind a cloud of dust. Ronan frowns down at his lawn; there’s mud everywhere now, and clods of grass have been ripped up, and then he wants to punch himself because when the fuck did he become such an old man?

He says as much to Gansey when the other boy skids into the front office, and Gansey pretends to think about it for a moment before he says, “Since you were around three, I think? You’ve always been crotchety, Lynch.”

Ronan flips him off, even as his mouth twitches as the sound of Adam’s echoing laugh.

The door is already open, but Gansey’s busy looking at Ronan, so he doesn’t see Blue climb the porch steps carefully, doesn’t see her place one hand on the doorjamb like it will hold her up, her knees shaking. Her other hand goes to her mouth and she stares, wide-eyed at Gansey.

Ronan jerks his thumb at Blue, and then grabs a random bit of greenery from the shelf as he slides around Gansey, heading for the hall.

“Gansey.”

Gansey smiles that infuriatingly genuine smile, and even though it’s aimed at Blue and not him, Ronan still wants to throw something at Gansey’s face. It’s been a year, a total of twelve whole months, since Ronan has seen that smile somewhere other than his dreams. Now that it’s here, in real life, it looks even more fragile. _Gansey_ looks fragile, vulnerable in a way that he hadn’t been before. Before, Gansey had been a King, and the whole world had been his Kingdom, and nothing could break him.

Until something had broken him.

“Blue,” Gansey says, his smile widening.

“You died,” Blue says, in an awfully quiet voice. She lowers her hand and stays there, in the doorway, such fragility on her face.

“But then I came back. Surely that has to count for something?”

Blue doesn’t smile. “ _You_ didn’t do that. You didn’t _come_ _back_ , you were _brought_ back. Ronan and Adam brought you back, and if they had stopped looking for a way to do it, you wouldn’t even be standing here right now. You wouldn’t be smiling at me like that, you wouldn’t be talking, you wouldn’t even be breathing – God, if they had stopped looking, you would be _gone_ forever. God, why did you _leave_?”

She breaks off to breathe; a big, harsh inhale. “I stopped looking. I never even looked in the first place. You were dead and I left, I didn’t even try to bring you back. What kind of person does that make me? I gave up on you.”

She starts to cry then, angry tears running down her cheeks, and Ronan holds his breath and backs up, because this is private. This has love written all over it, the forever kind. Gansey moves forward, one hand cupping Blue’s cheek, and Ronan starts to beat a tactical retreat.

“Jane, it was an honour to die with your mouth on mine, but if you wouldn’t be opposed, I’d like to try it again. With a little more feeling this time, and a little less perishing.”

Ronan smirks and sighs and rolls his eyes all at the same time. Such a smooth-talker.

Ronan leaves them to their love story and finds Adam in the kitchen, standing in front of the sink, bowl full of soapy water growing cold in front of him. There are dishes drying in the rack, and a few unwashed plates lying on the side, the remains of the blueberry pie from last night still dirtying them. Adam doesn’t look like he intends to finish the job – he’s staring out of the kitchen window and nursing a cup of something hot. There’s a pot in the corner of the workspace that bubbles suspiciously, and Ronan drops the plant near it before heading towards Adam.

Ronan wraps his arms around Adam’s waist and hooks his chin over Adam’s shoulder, breathing in the scent of washing-up liquid and oranges and mechanical oil. Adam will always smell a little bit like engines, and Ronan will always love it. Him. Ronan will always love _him_.

They stare out of the little window, out over the Orchard, watching Jane the Cat chase a bird across the yellow grass.

“This is domestic enough that I might throw up,” Ronan says casually.

Adam snorts and takes a sip of his tea, leaning into Ronan’s hold. “I didn’t ask you to come and feel me up. You did that on your own.”

Ronan squeezes him hard on purpose, and Adam laughs a little, choking on his tea, batting at Ronan’s arms with his free hand.

“Alright, alright,” Adam says, stepping lightly on Ronan’s foot. There’s laughter in his voice and Ronan wants it to always be there. “You win. You can feel me up anytime you like.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

They’re quiet, for a moment, and then Ronan says, “You’re not allowed to die.” Adam tips his head back, surprised, to look at him, and Ronan can count every single one of his eyelashes, if he wants to.

“Neither are you,” Adam murmurs.

Ronan can’t lie. He doesn’t lie to anyone, and he won’t lie to Adam, of all people. He knows about death and he knows that the world eats up naivety greedily, chewing people up and spitting them out again. He’s seen death, more than enough of it, and he knows that you don’t get a chance to fight it, or flee it.

“I’ll do my best,” Ronan promises him. “I’m the master of self-preservation.”

Adam snorts, then he makes a noise of protest and twists in Ronan’s arms so that they’re facing each together, holding his tea in the cramped space between them. His eyes are dark and serious. “I mean it,” Adam insists softly. “I’ve seen you die. I know it was just a dream-you, but it was still you. We almost killed ourselves for a year to bring Gansey back, and I would do it all again in a heartbeat, but …”

“But what?” Ronan asks, almost inaudibly. He reaches up and touches one fingertip to Adam’s cheek, smothering a freckle.

Adam bites his lip. “I can’t lose you.”

Ronan pauses, his hand freezing on Adam’s face. He can hear laughter and shouts from the front of the shop, and he can’t tell which voice is Blue’s and which voice is Gansey. Over Adam’s shoulder, Noah appears on the grass outside with a look of surprise on his pale face, and Jane the Cat streaks through his feet. Noah gives chase. Ronan traces a line from Adam’s cheek to his mouth, taps his fingertip against Adam’s lips and smiles.

“Put down your tea,” he says quietly, and leans in to kiss Adam.

*

Ronan is drowning.

It’s strange, surreal. He was in Cabeswater, talking to Adam, watching the night draw in. They’d spent the day there, all of them, curled up on the ground and walking for hours, talking, enjoying the fact that Gansey was there. Blue had stayed curled against his side the entire time, like she couldn’t stomach the thought of letting him go, and he and Adam had stayed close but not too close, watching.

They had pushed back the memories of the last time they were all here, together.

But this isn’t Cabeswater, this is just water. All around him, pressing down on him, and Ronan’s mind blurs for a second.

It takes a moment of confusion before Ronan realises that he’s not dreaming, this is _real, swim, get up, go_. His clothes weigh him down, a soft anchor, and Ronan flails his arms up, searches with his feet for something to push up with. There’s nothing there, no bottom, and Ronan feels a spike of fear at the fact that this might be all there is, might just be water and no shore, no ground.

His brain starts to scream, and Ronan almost opens his mouth, but panic kicks in and he shuts his mouth firmly, pushing upwards with his whole body. There’s a current, but it’s not particularly strong yet, and even with the edges of his vision fading, he can see a light up above him.

He rockets up out of the water. Liquid fills his lungs. He chokes and splutters and coughs, hands grabbing for something to grasp onto, and he sees the rocks around him, a stretch of grass – he’s in the pond, the pond in Cabeswater. Gasping, Ronan surges forward with trembling fingers, hauling himself up with a strength he didn’t know he possessed.

He collapses against the ground, oxygen flooding his brain as he takes deep, desperate breaths.

_Adam_ , he remembers suddenly. He had been with Adam, and then the other boy had been ripped away and Ronan had been pushed down, not by nasty hands but by something else, too impossibly large and loud and strong to name.

“Parrish,” he says, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper. “ _Adam_!”  

There’s a muffled sound, afraid and smothered, from nearby, and Ronan rips his head up.

There’s a mound of fresh dirt in front of him, and Ronan chokes back bile, horror rising in him. He dives forward, hands scrabbling against the thick, packed soil. Adam’s been planted, like a seed, shoved down in the dark and smothered and expected to grow, still. He’s been _buried_ , he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead –

Ronan growls, slams his hands against the ground, and Cabeswater spits him out. Adam erupts from the ground in a shower of earth, clods of grass raining from the sky. There’s blood on his head, tacky, matting his hair, and his lungs are filled with dirt and air, oxygen leaking into his starved veins. Ronan gets ahold of his hands and yanks until Adam tumbles out of the space in the earth, head bent and coughing until his throat burns, clutching the ground.

There’s no blood in Ronan’s veins. Just terror.

Ronan watches as Adam splays a hand over his chest and notes the dirt under his fingernails absently, too busy marvelling over the thrill of his heartbeat, the steady beat of a drum that has not burst.

“You fucker,” Ronan says, before he can stop himself, his voice rough and scared. He sounds like sandpaper, like salt in the sea. “I thought you’d died. You absolute fucker, Adam, _shit_. _You promised_. Fuck.”

A shape appears in his line of sight. The edges of Ronan’s vision are hazy at best, dark, but he’s beginning to realise that the sky is dark too, closing in on them as the seconds tick by. There is no sun, no blue sky, no hum of the crickets chirping in the nearby field of swaying wheat. Just blackness inching in hungrily, eager to swallow them up.

Adam lifts his head, and his terrified expression swims into view, and Ronan realises that they’re both still coughing. Every inch of Ronan is drenched in water, despite the dry air, but Adam looks worse. Ronan runs his hands up and down Adam’s arms, looking for leverage and reassurance, seeking the pulse at his wrist and neck.

Adam tilts, lands on his side in the twigs and dry mud, but Ronan pulls him upright with a clawed, desperate grip and forces him to sit, legs sprawled out and shaking, head bent as he coughs and coughs.

“What happened?” Adam croaks out.

“A spell,” Blue says, appearing out of a clump of trees with Gansey on her arm. Blue’s hair is blown to bits, a mass of choppy tangles, and her face is pale and chapped, the skin red raw and bleeding in places. Her clothes are in disarray, but she looks in control, despite the way she’s shaking like a leaf.

Ronan flicks his eyes to Gansey and winces. Gansey looks awful. One of his sleeves is singed off, and Ronan can see blood, a lot of it, smeared all over Gansey’s shirt. His breath catches, and he forces the fear down. Gansey’s alive, Blue’s alive, they all are. There’s black dirt all over Gansey’s skin – Ronan peers closer and comes to the alarming conclusion that it’s not dirt, in fact, but ash.

“What kind of sick fucking spell does this?” Ronan spits out, murderous gaze flicking over their surroundings, as though the culprit might be lurking behind a tree somewhere. Hell, for all they know, that could be true.

Adam’s head and shoulders droop, and Ronan can tell that he wants to lie down, maybe sleep for a while, but instead he coughs and answers Ronan’s question, “One that didn’t work.”

They look at him, then, critical and concerned and confused. Realisation dawns on Blue’s face first – Gansey is dazed and Ronan is too busy slapping Adam’s cheek in an effort to get him to stay awake.

“Such a fierce spell requires intent,” Blue whispers. She licks her dry lips, and the bottom lip cracks down the centre, bleeding. “Whoever cast it didn’t intend for us to survive this. They wanted us to die, here in Cabeswater.”

“They’re going to be pissed then,” Ronan remarks darkly. “I hope they come after us properly this time. None of this cowardly hiding behind spellwork shit, I’ll give them a piece of my mind. And my fist.”

Adam shakes his head. “Careful what you wish for,” he says quietly, and then he slumps forward until his face is buried in Ronan’s neck, sighing against his damp skin. Ronan doesn’t care that Blue and Gansey are there, watching, that they might work this out, might realise that he and Adam, well – he doesn’t care, right now. He just wants to feel safe for a moment.

“Why are you wet?” Adam asks drowsily. Ronan doesn’t reply, merely ghosts a hand up Adam’s back and clings tightly to the back of his head, fist knotting in the hair there, not caring about the mud and dirt.

There’s a beat of silence, and then Blue says, “Water.” Her voice is a little shaky, with an undercurrent of something that Ronan can’t name, and then she clears her throat and her voice is steady. “Water is one of the four elements.  Sorcerers tend to rely on nature for power.”

“Adam was earth,” Ronan snarls, clinging a little to Adam.

“Blue was air,” Gansey says, shaking himself. “And I – I was fire. Four elements.”

“Five,” comes a voice from behind them. Adam lifts his head with some difficulty and forces himself to turn around with the others, Ronan’s hand slipping down to the small of his back and resting there. Noah stands behind the tree, looking whiter than usual, the smudge on his face blacker than the insistent night. He’s wringing his hands, but the rest of him is unusually still, like moving would be too much effort for right now. Ronan knows how he feels – his muscles are screaming and his lungs burn with every breath.

“Noah,” Blue says, relief evident in her tone. “You disappeared. We didn’t know where you went.”

Noah doesn’t shake his head, but his jaw ticks like he wants to. “I didn’t go anywhere. I don’t know where I went. I was here and then I was gone, like knocking something off of a shelf.”

Ronan’s voice is tight. “Someone knocked you off the shelf.”

Gansey straightens up, but doesn’t lean away from Blue. “Some cultures believe that Spirit is the fifth magical element, in addition to fire and water and air and earth.” Ronan doesn’t know how Gansey can hold a coherent thought in his head, let alone deliver a lecture, but he does. “It’s supposed to be the binding force that ties the elements together.”

Noah scoffs and holds his hands out, and the smallest movement causes his whole form to flicker. When he’s back, he swallows and says, “Hardly a force to be reckoned with, guys.”

Ronan shakes his head. “Someone obviously disagrees, Czerny.”

Blue says quietly, “At the risk of sounding dramatic, I think someone wants us all dead. Now we just have to figure out who.”

Adam stifles a somewhat hysterical laugh and sighs.

“Just like old times.”

*

Ronan doesn’t want to get hypothermia, so as soon as the door to the Shop snaps shut behind him and Adam, Ronan slinks upstairs, grumbling about needing a shower. Adam is on his heels less than a second later, and they both sit on Ronan’s bed for a moment, the tiredness creeping up on them.

“Keep your phone on you,” Ronan says, and Adam nods, already pulling it out of his pocket and placing it down on the bedside dresser, next to a pair of strange-looking spectacles with hexagonal lenses. Adam looks at them, then looks at Ronan; Ronan shrugs – he doesn’t always understand why he brings back certain things.

“At least they’re not dangerous,” Adam says, shrugging.

“You don’t know that,” Ronan says, too tired to talk but doing it anyway. “They could shoot lasers at people, for all you know. I’ll have you know that I can dream up some pretty dangerous shit, Parrish. It’s not all fruit and flower petals.”

Adam raises an eyebrow at him, amused. Of the two of them, Adam needs the shower more, since he’s caked in dirt, but Ronan is freezing and steadily getting colder. Adam notices, frowning, and then beckons him up.

“C’mon, there’s room enough for both of us in there,” Adam says, and Ronan tips his head to the side when a blush works its’ way up over Adam’s dirty, impassive face. 

“Of course there is,” Ronan says slyly. “I’m the one who designed it.”

Adam snorts and shakes his head, starts to make his way towards Ronan’s bathroom when his phone buzzes. He pauses, and Ronan gets over his fear of phones temporarily in order to check the screen. It’s a message from Blue.

_Gansey’s getting stitched up, nothing too serious, just needs gauze for a few weeks and the stitches will dissolve on their own. He’s fine, talking to the nurse about neurobiology._

Ronan reads it aloud, and Adam laughs. He can hear the relief in Adam’s tone and feels it mirrored in himself. He puts the phone face down on the bedside table and then follows Adam into the shower, grateful for the hot steam and warm spray that gets rid of the sticky feeling of fear that still clings to him.

They don’t have sex, but the shower is somehow more intimate than if they had.

The dirt and mud is everywhere, and Ronan helps Adam wash it away with soapy, shaking hands; Adam’s eyes are wide and fixed on Ronan’s face for the most part, and it occurs to Ronan that Adam is just as new to this as he is, that Adam’s only experience with relationships is holding hands with Blue and the kisses that he and Ronan have shared. Ronan’s own experience is limited to Kavinsky and Adam, and Ronan doesn’t like to think about Kavinsky – if that can even be classified as a relationship, then it’s a fucking unhealthy one, at best.

The one thing that Ronan loves about this is how uncomplicated it is.

They do kiss, slowly and often, but the day catches up to them eventually, and they clamber out of the shower, avoiding the sodden pile of clothes on the floor as they collapse onto Ronan’s bed. Ronan doesn’t usually sleep here, doesn’t usually sleep anywhere, and he’s not sure he even can tonight, if Blue and Gansey are coming back after they’ve finished in the hospital.

Ronan groans suddenly, and Adam startles from where he’s slipping on sweatpants.

“What?” Adam asks, pushing his damp hair out of his eyes. It makes Ronan want to smile dopily, which is just _revolting_.  

“Gansey’s probably on pain-killers,” Ronan says unhappily. “Which is _great_ for him, but we took your shit-box here and they’ve got my BMW, and I’m not letting him anywhere near my BMW on painkillers.”

“You’re going to have to go and get them,” Adam surmises, frowning. “And you’re going to have to leave my _car_ there.”

“Hey,” Ronan says, collapsing back against the cushions lazily. “Never said I was volunteering for the job, could just make you do it.”

Adam rolls his eyes, drags a t-shirt on over his head – one of Ronan’s, and it doesn’t fit but it still makes Ronan’s chest tight and heat curl in his stomach – and crawls up the length of the bed until he blankets Ronan’s body with his own.

“The quicker you leave,” Adam mumbles, kissing the hollow of Ronan’s throat. “The quicker you get to come back.”

Ronan’s eyes flutter closed, and he drags a hand through Adam’s wet hair, tugs a little. Adam makes a surprised, thoughtful sound and, after a moment, starts to suck a mark against Ronan’s collarbone. All of the breath leaves Ronan’s lungs for the second time that night, but this time Ronan is pretty willing to succumb.

They stay that way for a moment, until Adam leans up onto his elbows and Ronan reluctantly slides out from under him. There’s a nice, faint mark on Ronan’s skin that’s just barely hidden by his sweatshirt, when he pulls it on, and it’s going to turn a deep purple soon. Ronan likes the idea more than he probably should.

He glances back at Adam as he pulls on his shoes, and something settles in his chest – Adam is there, half-asleep but still watching Ronan, his mouth turned up at the corners, hands curled under the pillow. He looks good there.

Ronan groans again, dives in for a quick kiss and then storms out of the bedroom. He’s going to break so many speed limits tonight, he decides, as he clambers into the car and slams his foot down on the gas.

*

It’s so late by the time Ronan drives Blue and Gansey back to their respective houses that the sun is out, but Ronan knows they won’t be getting up any time soon. His body aches and he’s exhausted, and Gansey pretty much passes out immediately once Ronan shoves him into Gansey’s bedroom.

He slips into his own bedroom with a frown on his face and glances at Adam, who’s still curled up, mostly asleep. He’s just spent the last hour listening to Blue and Gansey whisper sweet nothings to each other and trade swift kisses in the back of the car, and it makes him ache for that kind of easy exchange.

He says as much to Adam, and Adam hums in agreement.

“Feels like a lie,” Ronan says, mouth mashed against Adam’s shoulder.

“It’s your decision,” Adam murmurs back, voice soft in the darkness. “We can tell Gansey, if you like.”

“That feels cruel,” Ronan says, eyelashes brushing the back of Adam’s neck as he closes his eyes.

“That’s never stopped you before. What would you rather be? Honest and cruel or deceitful and kind?” Adam asks, and Ronan doesn’t have an answer. He snorts instead, and Adam squirms.

“Are those my only options?” he asks, feels it when Adam nods. “That’s fucking depressing, man. Can’t they just walk in on us making out in the kitchen?”

Adam laughs, and the sound echoes around them, the only thing that isn’t hushed in the room. “You don’t want that, really. But we can do that too, afterwards. If you want.”

“What kind of question is that?” Ronan demands, kisses his way to the top of Adam’s spine; Adam shivers, and Ronan presses his answering smile against sun-kissed, freckled skin. “Of course I fucking want that.”

After, just as Adam is dozing off, warm and sated, mouth slack with satisfaction, Ronan kisses his cheek and he whispers, “Tomorrow. We’ll tell them tomorrow.”

Adam finds his hand in the darkness, and they sleep.

*

Tomorrow turns out to be three days away, and it isn’t on purpose either.

They’ve been careful to keep things swift and low-key, but after a day of trawling through the Orchard with Adam, Ronan thinks it’s perfectly safe to push Adam up against a tree and kiss him hard. Gansey is with blue, after all, and after an initial interest in the Orchard, he’s soon gotten lost in the Sorcerer’s whereabouts. He’s only been out here twice, since, which makes things safe, in Ronan’s opinion.

The basket of herbs and strange fruit lies forgotten at their feet, tipped on its’ side. Ronan leans his whole body against Adam and kissed him soundly, hungrily, licking into his mouth and turning things hot and slick. Adam keeps making these small noises against Ronan’s mouth, and every time his breath hitches Ronan can’t help but grip his waist harder, bite a little at his teeth.

He has his hands up the back of Adam’s shirt and his mouth fixed to Adam’s throat when Gansey comes around the corner with a grin on his face.

“I’ve found a way to track the Sorcerer!”

The grin dies quickly – Adam shoves Ronan away and Ronan swears quietly under his breath. They both stand, wide-eyed and panting a little, faces flushed, as Gansey looks blankly from one to the other. His mouth is open and his eyes are a little glassy, and one of his hands is frozen in mid-air.

“That … wasn’t what I was expecting,” Gansey says slowly. “Although I’m beginning to think that’s because of me, not you two.”

“That wasn’t how we were going to tell you,” Ronan blurts out immediately, and fuck, he’s _blushing_. Adam makes a soft noise of agreement and shifts awkwardly, making an aborted attempt to reach out to Gansey.

Gansey arches an eyebrow. “I should hope not. How long …?” He trails off, and Ronan doesn’t know how to answer, because that could be a few questions, really. How long have they been together? How long have they liked each other for? How long has this been building up for?

“We actually got together properly the day we brought you back,” Adam offers, glancing hesitantly at Ronan. Ronan nods and Adam speaks up, a little surer now. “But this has been a long time coming.”

“This year?” Gansey says, and Ronan is about to agree even though it’s not technically true for him, when Adam shakes his head.

“I’ve liked Ronan for a while now, since I broke up with Blue,” Adam says firmly. “Maybe even before that.”

Both Gansey and Ronan stare at him, stunned.

“I didn’t know that,” Ronan blurts out, and God, it’s like he has no control over his mouth or his face, because he’s pretty sure the blush is increasing, what with Adam looking at him all fond and exasperated and shy, somehow all at once.

“Neither did I,” Gansey says, snorting. “Although now that I do know, it’s pretty obvious.”

They both blink at each other, and then at Gansey.

“The hand-cream,” Gansey says, ticking things off on his fingers. “All the arguments you guys have, the mix-tape, the whole thing with Adam’s dad, sleeping at the church so often, going to the Barns together, and –”

“We get it,” Ronan says, rolling his eyes.

“You live together,” Gansey says, and there’s so much glee in his voice that Ronan sort of wants to kill him.

“Fuck, you don’t have to list every time we’ve ever _looked_ at each other.”

Gansey grins a little mischievously. “Maybe not right now, no.”

Ronan can tell they’re going to have to talk more about it later, in typical Gansey fashion – at two o’clock in the morning when neither of them can sleep and Gansey’s clutching his phone close, thinking of Blue.

“Careful,” Adam says, smiling slyly. “You weren’t exactly subtle when it came to Blue, either.”

Gansey turns red, flips them the bird and murmurs, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Adam snorts, reaches down to pick up the fallen basket of fruit, and then tugs on Ronan’s hand. Ronan’s breath gets caught in his chest – Gansey just smiles, pleased as punch, and Ronan can’t hide his own grin.

*

The Pig looks brighter than it ever has before, and Ronan feels something click into place as he watches Gansey slide his hands against the orange paint, his smile painfully huge. Adam’s holding a greasy rag in one hand, clutching it like it’s a lifeline as he leans over the engine. Ronan skates his eyes over Adam’s legs, bared to the weather in shorts, then watches as Adam pushes his hair back; it sticks up all over the place, and Ronan wants to smooth it down, tousle it, tug on it – he can’t decide.

“Can’t believe we didn’t think of this before,” Ronan mutters, and Blue huffs a laugh beside him. She’s a little bit taller than she was when she left for the rainforest, or wherever the fuck she went, but she still barely comes up to Ronan’s chin.

“It was pretty dumb,” Blue says teasingly, and then her voice goes softer as she watches Gansey grin and chat to Adam, who looks a little overwhelmed. “Still, you can’t be expected to think of everything. I think you’ve done enough, anyway.”

“Yeah?” Ronan asks, keeping his tone purposefully light, even as he chews on his leather bands.

“Yes,” Blue says solemnly, careful. “You brought him back.”

Ronan hums, and then says, “Christ, Maggot. You’re not going to get all tearful on me, are you? You’ll have to borrow Adam’s blouse, I don’t have any tissues.”

Adam flips him off easily, still leaning over the engine, and Gansey frowns a them. Ronan snickers and then pats Blue’s head, ignoring her slightly murderous expression.

“I’m serious,” Blue says, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms. “Thank you. I know you didn’t do it for me, obviously, but I’m still grateful.”

Ronan nods; they didn’t do it for Blue, true, just as they didn’t do it for Noah or Adam or Ronan himself. Of all of them, they can agree that Gansey is the brightest, the biggest, the one that belongs on this earth the most simply because he loves it so much, worships the ground he walks on and smiles stupidly at the sky.

He shrugs. “It’s Gansey. The world isn’t right without him.”

Blue smiles a little wryly. “I thought it would be different, somewhere else. I’ve only seen him here, in Henrietta. It was too painful to stay, to see all the places he’s walked and everywhere he’s talked about. He’s all over this land, all over my home. I thought maybe it would only feel empty here, with him gone, but it’s like he was everywhere, all over the world, and I could see the big space where he was supposed to be wherever I went. Even in the rainforest.”

She laughs, “I thought I’d be safe in the rainforest,” and Ronan smiles a little. Those come a little easier now, the smiles, although he refrains from a lot of them purely out of habit.

“Nowhere’s safe from Gansey,” Ronan says loudly, cheerily, and Gansey turns to them with a wounded look, one hand still pressed against the Pig, and the other pressed against his chest in a scandalised fashion, and its exactly where Ronan wants to be.

*

They find the Sorcerer in Monmouth.

The BMW peels into the parking lot, and Adam throws a hand out like he’s afraid of rolling, his face pale and a little sickly.

“Lynch, for fuck’s sake, you’re going to kill us all one day,” Adam snaps, and its’ just nerves and fear, but Ronan looks at him sharply anyway. “I don’t want to be dead in a ditch.”

“You already were,” Ronan reminds him angrily, thinking back to the grave in the middle of Cabeswater, the way they had both drowned, one in water and one in soil.

“That’s not what I mean,” Adam says, and he’s got one hand on the door, about to throw it open, when Ronan leans over and grabs his chin. Adam’s eyes are dark and unsure, and Ronan waits for that wall to slam up, the one that locks everyone out, the one that makes it impossible to know him. It doesn’t go up; Adam’s eyes are dark and unsure and they _stay_ dark and unsure, and Ronan feels a thrill of triumph. He’s won something, here.

“I know what you mean,” Ronan says, and it’s an apology.

“Are you two going to kiss?” Noah asks, popping up in the back seat, and Ronan jumps so hard that his head crashes into the roof of the car. “Because I really don’t want to see that.”

“Czerny, fuck,” Ronan says loudly, and then he narrows his eyes. “Just for that…”

He leans over, kisses Adam in a way that’s supposed to be hard and fast and demanding, but morphs into something sweet and lingering.

Noah crinkles his nose up, “Ew.” He’s smiling.

Adam rolls his eyes. “Noah, I thought you got knocked off the shelf again.”

Noah nods solemnly. “I did. It wasn’t as strong this time, though. I think it’s because of Cabeswater.”

Ronan nods. “Makes sense. We’re too far away for this fucker to tap into Cabeswater’s power, or maybe it’s just that we’re not in Cabeswater this time. Fuck if I know.”

“You’re right, I think,” Adam says slowly.

“Isn’t that bad?” Noah asks, fading a little. “Doesn’t that mean that Cabeswater’s too far away to help?”

Adam shakes his head, shudders a little, grasps at his own shoulder like something’s clamping down on it. Ronan’s seen him like this a handful of times, but he’s always arrived after the worst of the episode has worn off, much to his own irritation. He gets the value of privacy in situations like this, but fuck it, he wants to help. He always wants to help Adam.

“Cabeswater’s _never_ too far away,” Adam replies. The forest doesn’t have the same hold on him as it did before; Adam is mostly free from his bargain, after everything that went down, but there’s bits of Cabeswater that still linger, and he can still hear it calling to him at times. Ronan thinks, privately, that Adam doesn’t want to sever the bond completely, but he hasn’t said it out loud before.

“Where are they?” Ronan’s impatient voice bursts the silence, and he glares out of the darkened window at the open road, straining to catch a glimpse of Blue or Gansey. They’d taken separate cars out of habit, and Ronan can’t hear the roar of the Pig at all.

“Should we have just come in here like that?” Noah asks, chewing his lip nervously. The smudge on his face is pure black now, like a void; Ronan doesn’t like to look at it, but he can’t help it, it draws the eye. “Isn’t the Sorcerer going to be able to tell? What if he’s watching us?”

“He probably is,” Adam admits. “But we already knew he was powerful, so he probably sensed we were on our way anyway. I doubt that there’s much point in hiding.”

“Do you think he can shoot fireballs?” Noah asks, a little bit awed, but mostly afraid.

Ronan snorts loudly, wheezes his way towards a laugh, and Noah scowls at him, tries to flick him on the ear. Ronan catches his hand and holds it away from him, and Adam sighs as them both.

“It’s a valid question,” Noah says moodily. “He uses the elements. Fire is an element.”

“He uses nature more than the elements themselves, I think,” Adam says, in an attempt to be comforting. “I think we’re safe from fireballs, Noah.”

“Yeah,” Ronan says, in a fake-cheerful voice. “We’ve just got to worry about floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, that kind of thing.”

Adam shoots him an exasperated look. “Helpful, Ronan, really help.”

“I live to please.”

It takes ten more minutes for Blue and Gansey to arrive, and by that time Ronan is itching to get out and storm the building.

“What are we doing?” Blue asks as she climbs out of the Pig, her legs crammed into woollen tights that Ronan feels are unnecessary; it’s warm, even in the middle of the night, and the air sticks to him. “Just because we know where he is doesn’t mean we should march in and confront him. He’s powerful.”

“So are we,” Ronan says. “And we can always just charge him if he tries anything.”

“He might listen to reason,” Gansey says. “We don’t know what he wants, maybe it’s something we can give him, or negotiate over. It doesn’t always have to end in a fight.”

This last bit is aimed at Ronan, who rolls his eyes.

“I called the Gray Man,” Blue warns them. “He knows where we are.”

It’s a good thing, too.

The Sorcerer snarls as they walk in, and Ronan feels like someone’s punched him in the stomach. Not because of the sneering guy, but because Monmouth looks so empty and derelict. The windows are dirty and the furniture is gone, cleaned out, and there’s a thick layer of dust over every empty surface. Ronan blinks, Adam catches his breath, and Noah makes a small, mournful noise.

Gansey’s face is pasty and cracked down the middle.

“I know you,” Adam says sharply, abruptly. He’s talking to the Sorcerer, one finger pointed at the guy’s face, and it takes Ronan a second before he realises it too.

“Seriously?” he demands, pissed. “Most people just leave a bad review when they don’t like a service. They don’t resort to _murder_.”

The Sorcerer sticks his nose up and sneers, blue fire curling in his fingers. “You refused to give me what I wanted.”

“Who is this man?” Gansey asks urgently.

“He’s the dickhead customer that I told you about in the supermarket,” Ronan says loudly. “The asshole who had nothing important to say and broke a bunch of shit in a tantrum.”

Adam makes a small noise of agreement, but his eyes are fixed on the Sorcerer. “We couldn’t give you what you wanted,” he says evenly. “We explained why.”

“I don’t believe you,” the man hisses. “I want the Greywaren, and I’ll get it.”

“Oh you’ll get it,” Ronan says under his breath, and he’s about to launch himself at the man, fist drawn back when a wave of hot, hard air is hurled at him. Ronan slams into the window with a loud, painful thud, and the glass cracks but doesn’t break. Adam shouts and Blue lets out a tiny scream, and then there’s a wave of noise. Ronan blinks as black spots invade his vision, and then he’s clambering up with a snarl.

Something is burning beside him, and another window smashes under the weight of the Sorcerer’s next wave of air. The kitchen starts to collapse as air swirls around the room, thick and viscous and stealing the oxygen from their lungs. Ronan charges forward, and then stumbles as something wraps itself around his feet. He looks down and glares at the vines there, purple and toxic-looking, with none of the natural beauty of Cabeswater.

There’s smoke in the air and a clumsy tornado in the kitchen, which rips up floorboards with a ferocity that Ronan feels in his veins. The Sorcerer takes a step closer, and the ball of simmering flames flies towards Adam. Ronan lets out a harsh, shocked noise of warning, and Adam ducks just in time, flattens himself to the ground. 

The ball of fire smashes through the window and lands on something heavily, with a crunch of metal and a roar of flame.

The Sorcerer waves a hand towards Gansey, opens his mouth to speak, and then – something whizzes past them all and embeds itself in the Sorcerer’s chest.

The room falls silent. The something is a knife, silver, buried deep in the Sorcerer’s body. He murmurs something in surprise, and then collapses to the floor.

The air is still charged with magic, but the tornado dies slowly.

“What was that?” Blue asks shakily.

“That would be me,” the Gray Man says calmly. He stands in the shadow of the front door, brushing his hands off carefully. Maura pushes her way past him and stride towards Blue, catching her in a hug.

“I must say, Blue, I really am glad you called,” the Gray Man says, with a slightly unnerving smile. “I was beginning to think that tonight was going to be boring."

*

Ronan spends a few minutes in front of his burning car, staring wide-eyed at the smoking wreckage and swearing colourfully.

“I swear if that fucker wasn’t already dead, I’d end him,” Ronan says, fists clenched, anger fizzing through him.

“Speaking of that,” says The Grey Man. “What exactly did the four of you plan to do? March in there and demand that he drop dead immediately? I admire bravery, but only when it’s tempered with common sense, rather than stupidity. Perhaps next time you’ll come up with a better plan.”

“What makes you think there will _be_ a next time?” Maura asks, a hint of steel in her voice. She stares directly at her daughter, ignoring Ronan’s increasingly creative explosion of curse words, and Blue stares back apologetically, although her chin is tipped up in defiance.

“I think it’s sort of a given, really,” Blue says, shrugging one shoulder. “They seem to attract trouble.”

Maura rolls her eyes heavenward. “And of course you’d have nothing to do with it at all, would you?”

Blue smiles brightly. “I repel trouble.”

Gansey looks like he wants to kiss her then and there, in the middle of the car park, parent be damned, so Ronan stops groaning and marches towards the Pig to get things moving before Gansey can embarrass himself. He snags Adam’s arm along the way, pretends he isn’t clinging to the other boy as he shoves him bodily into the back seat so that they can sit together.

“I can’t believe we did it,” Adam says roughly as he squirms around, trying to get comfortable. He jams their thighs together and Ronan puts a hand on Adam’s knee, firm and warm. The Pig is cramped even with just the two of them there, so when Noah fits himself beside Adam, Ronan gets crushed up against the door. Gansey slides into the driver’s seat, drums his fingers against the steering wheel as he waits for Blue to finish hugging her mother.

Gansey turns to look at them, his mouth a curve of concern. “You all okay?”

Ronan nods, suddenly drained, adrenaline replaced by a drowsy tiredness.

“ _I’m_ fine,” Noah says, grinning, and Ronan leans over Adam to glare at him.

“You mean you’re _smug_ ,” he says. “It doesn’t count as a fucking fireball, Czerny.”

Gansey looks at them, fondly confused, and then glances up as Blue opens the door and slips inside the car. They wave to Maura and The Gray Man, who stand beside their own car, illuminated by the light of the burning BMW. Ronan scowls again as they drive past it, but Adam just pats his hand, tangles their fingers together, and Ronan doesn’t have the energy to be angry, at least for tonight.

He looks up from their joined hands in time to see Blue lean forward and press a kiss to Gansey’s cheek, her smile bright in the moonlight.

Gansey catches Ronan’s eye in the mirror, and Ronan smirks. Gansey clears his throat. “Well, that was exciting. Back to the Shop?”

Blue stretches out in the seat, Noah hums the Murder Squash Song under his breath; Adam leans his head against Ronan’s shoulder and smiles contently. The Pig roars down the open road and Ronan feels a rush of something disgustingly happy; it’s been a while since Gansey drove them anyway, but he can tell they’re all caught up in it, lost in the familiarity.

It’s like before, only better.

“Nah,” Ronan says quietly, kicks the back of Gansey’s chair, tightens his hold on Adam’s hand. “Keep driving.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it :) Thank you very much! Come find me at @thealmostrhetoricalquestion if you wanna yell :)


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